Commissioner Christine MacMillan said the Salvation Army has to stay relevant to the community it serves.

The territorial commander for Canada and Bermuda spoke to the Rotary Club of Corner Brook on January 19 at its regular weekly meeting.In Bonavista, she was invited into the oldest building in the province - a rickety wooden structure. She said the building was a fish plant at one point in time and the top floor was where the Salvation Army met - the second place on the island. Those leading the tour seemed to think she wouldn’t make the seven-step journey up the frail-looking ladder in her high heel shoes, hut she did.

“I went up there and I stood and began to picture it. I began to smell the fish processing and I could hear the Salvation Army singing. I think for us and me as a Salvation Army leader, we stop smelling fish, whatever that looks like in the community, then we don’t understand who we truly are.

Commissioner MacMillan said her organization provides a safety net for people, hut it must also he a springboard to help people get a sense of ownership of their destiny and future. She’s seen the ability of people to adapt to circumstances that seem hopeless. She worked as a social worker in Vancouver for a number of years. One sunny day she was across from a bar called the Sunrise Hotel - a place that had swinging doors that evoked the old west. Commissioner MacMillan said a man came out of the bar and began staggering across the street.

“I don’t know why it is, hut when you’re very drunk. you can cross a red light in safety,” said MacMillan. “I could see the man was in a hurry, hut I knew he wanted to talk to me. He said ‘Salvation Army. you do good work.’

“I think we do very good work, but at the same time he had his hand up and he was hailing a taxicab. The taxicab drew alongside, but before he got in, he pulled out, not a blue $5 bill, but an orange $50 bill and he went to give it to me.’

She never saw him in Vancouver again - something unusual for people staggering out of the Sunrise.

Three years later she was in Toronto at congress where she was participating in the opening night play. At the end of rehearsal the same man came up to her and told her what had happened. He had robbed a hank and had $50,000 shoved in his cowboy boots that day.

He’d been caught shortly after. Salvation Army members had visited him in jail and he’d found God in the jail cell. He had a construction company and went to the jail every week to tell people there is hope and possibilities of new life.

“I tell you the Salvation Army needs to he absolutely relevant by being on the streets of where life truly is. That’s not in any way restricted to people who steal things or weave their way across at a red light.”

by Cliff Wells
Reprinted with permission from The Wester Star (Corner Brook)